Thread: rubber scales?

While researching a wade and butcher that I recently restored I found an ad from the 1800's that stated that the W+B scales were rubber. I looked closer at the old broken scales from this razor and realized that in fact what I had thought to be black bakelite or similar was in fact rock hard brittle aged rubber. Has anyone tried moulding/cutting/fabricating black rubber scales?

They could be ebonite or gutta-percha seeing as rubber was stated in the original ad.

Gutta-percha first came to the notice of the west in 1822, was publicised in 1845 and was being used for all sorts of things including ear trumpets, tooth-fillings, mourning jewellery and furniture by the 1850s - it will soften if subjected to heat but regains it's hardness again once cooled.

Ebonite (aka vulcanite) was produced by Goodyear in 1851 - another "black hard rubber" product used for bowling balls, pipe mouthpieces, fountain pens, etc. It is natural rubber (as is gutta-percha) treated with sulphur and heated. It will not deform with heat again, unlike gutta percha.

You would have to use a hard rubber for scales. If you were going to mould it, you might as well use a modern resin as the processes for refining the crude natural rubber (cutting into leather-like blanks, heating, kneading into dough, macerating, cooling, discarding anything that doesn't float, reheating, pressing to remove water, etc, etc) are a bit - well, involved!

Regards,
Neil